


Draw Flowers On My Arms

by thephantompoet (typewriteronfire)



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 08:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2541584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typewriteronfire/pseuds/thephantompoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>cophine in a florist/tattoo artist au</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part I - 'hey neighbour'

On a shady street, on the right side of town, there’s a tiny florist’s shop. This florist’s shop is called  _Full Bloom,_ painted such a ridiculously sweet pastel blue that, it is rumoured, makes passers-by’s teeth hurt.

This shop is strangely, one might say even ironically, situated directly next-door to a tattoo parlour,  _Rad Ink,_  the front of which is stencilled black and red, double helix designs painted wildly across the door.  

Two women own these shops; one blonde, one brunette.

And this is the beginning of a love story, believe it or not.

 

                                                    \//\// 

The day is slow; sluggish with heat and Cosima Niehaus is late.

She’s kinda always late, so she doubts anyone will be surprised, but it’s annoying anyway, because she’ll have to at least  _pretend_ to rush… and that takes a lot of energy in heat like this.

         “Shit,” She says, dropping her keys.

She’s riding her scooter to work, or at least trying, but it seems like most things are determined to make her even later.

She grins to herself though, finally managing to climb on the moped and retrieving a helmet from her bag, maybe even the objects in her life have started to talk to her. ‘Chill out Niehaus!’ she imagines her keys saying, when they fall. ‘Take your time, dude!’ But that might just be all the weed she’s been smoking.

She gets to work, she does, eventually, and the sight of her familiar little shop front, splattered with her most sciency tattoo designs makes her feel immediately at home. The keys find their way to the lock eventually, the metal hotter than her skin, and the door swings open with a shared sigh of relief. God, how hard is it to get to work in the morning, honestly.

She dumps her bag by the door, this place is more like her living room than a place of business, and crosses the ‘drawing floor’ as she’s dubbed it, to check ‘the book’.

‘The book’ is a giant tome of times, names and appointments that sits in the back of the shop gathering more dust than it does figures. It’s a bible to live by, the only organisational tool Cosima Niehaus has ever used to run her business, ‘but hey it works right? People love me.’

Oh yes, Cosima, they do. But it doesn’t stop them being bemused at your success…

The only entry written in for today is ‘Obinger- something rock and roll’, and Cosima raises her eyebrows in joy. This Obinger sounds like a badass who can’t make up their mind, and Cosima likes the sound of that. She reaches for the CD player and presses play with glee, the dance tunes quickly settling her mind and wrapping the shop in sound.

Cosima Niehaus dances.

                                                   \//\//

Next door, Delphine is working with her bottom lip caught between her teeth and a look of utmost concentration between her eyebrows. She moves a lilly, white and pristine, to the other side of the vase, and the rest of the blooms in her arrangement fall into disarray.

         “Oh, merde!”

Her sharp whisper of French carries through the thin walls and Cosima pauses for a second over her selection of ‘rock and roll-esque’ tattoo designs, thinking for a second that a gentle French ghost might have just invaded her place of business. But the feeling moves on as quickly as it came and Delphine is oblivious, giving up on her current arrangement to flip the door sign from closed to open.

The day’s business has begun.  

\//\//

Obinger turns out to be a tiny red-haired German girl called Katja wearing a lot of fur and studded jeans.

The girl swaggers through the front door at about 11 am, on the phone, nodding to Cosima as she sits heavily in the waiting chairs by the door. Cosima turns the music down, considering changing the playlist to something a little less ‘ravey’ but Katja’s hung up now, and is reaching for the selection of tattoo magazines.

“Dude, don’t bother waiting, I honestly have nothing to do but your tat right now,” Cosima gestures towards the tattoo chair. “Please! Sit down somewhere a little more serious.”

The tiny tattoo artist half-jogs over to her workbench and gathers a small selection of designs she thinks are rock and roll.

The German walks hesitantly towards the chair, readjusting her jacket around thin shoulders and letting her dark eyes roam around the cluttered walls. 

Cosima’s good at decorating, and the girl can draw, so almost every single available surface has paper hanging off it, haphazardly pinned. Obinger smiles slightly, looking between Cosima and the decor nervously.

         “You know who I am? Katja. Katja Obinger? And you have designs for me, yes?”

Her accent’s thick, sure, but Cosima sure as hell can’t speak German, so she can’t help being impressed. She passes the designs to Katja, grinning easily as her bangles jingle loudly in the quiet.

         “For sure. I totally agree with the rock and roll choice, Kat. It’s classic, timeless.” She tilts her head to one side and studies Katja’s face as she looks through the selection. “You know if you don’t like any of those I have others. You’ve got to be sure, it’s kinda a permanent thing, you know?”

Katja laughs,

         “That is the point of this, I am aware.” But she’s unfazed; pointing steadily with a pale hand to an image of a guitar, wrapped in a single red rose. “I like this one.”

         “Oh, that’s brilliant then!” Cosima grins, “Cool choice! Anything I can get you before we begin?”

\//\//

The florist’s is also lacking on the business front; the heat keeps passers-by away. It’s a killer for getting anything done. Delphine’s only in for the hard-core, ‘here for a reason’ type of customers today, and that’s enough to make her want to pack up shop as swiftly as possible. But just as she’s actually considering it, there’s a jingle of the door opening, and a tiny woman with a large frown bustles in, holding two small children by the hand. Her cheeks are pink, but she looks impatient, squaring her shoulders tightly and half inclining her head.

         “Behave yourselves, Oscar, Gemma? Promise mummy you will, okay?”

The two serious children nod their heads, the girl distracted, and already gazing awestruck at the enormous arrangement Delphine has placed by the door. It’s no wonder; even the smallest flowers in the design are taller than her, so Delphine walks over quietly, and plucks an oversized daisy from one side of the vase.

         “Would you like this one? It’ll look pretty with your dress, don’t you think.”

The girl’s mother tries to smile, and her daughter is outright grinning in delight, her little hands already reaching out in eager tremble.

         “Thank you.”

         “De rien, ma petite. Your brother can choose one too if he’d like.”

The boy looks equally excited, but starts a tour of the shop, making sure he chooses the perfect flower, no doubt.

Delphine walks back to the counter and sips demurely from a glass of ice water that’s starting to melt. The children’s mother stays standing, still and rigid in the middle of the shop, Delphine smiles softly at her.  _A football mum then, over-protective with a healthy dose of status anxiety._ _  
_

“Can I help you with anything, Madame? I do hope I wasn’t out of line giving your daughter that flower.”

The mother brushes her fringe aside, cheeks even redder in the heat of the shop.

         “Not at all,” she says, visibly relaxing. ‘I’m here because I require a bouquet of some kind. I’ve heard you’re very good. I’m Alison, Alison Hendrix.”

         “I’m alright, Mrs Hendrix, oui.” Delphine agrees, smiling. “For what occasion?”

\//\//

Later that day, Cosima gives up. She turns off her radio, slams ‘the book’ shut, and fans herself uselessly with a tired hand.

         “Holy shit, it’s hot!” She says to the empty shop.

Katja has just left, happily sporting a bandaged wrist with her brand new tat shining red underneath. It’s why Cosima does the job, of course.

Those smiles, the ones that are wonder mixed with fear. Getting a tattoo, the whole thing, it’s a commitment to a picture, to an idea, forever etched in your skin.

Cosima loves the permanence; everything else in her life has shifted away from her, you see. Parents too busy with academic careers to love a daughter dizzy with the joy of life, lovers that never cared enough to stay more than a night, no matter how much she smiled.

Yeah, Cosima’s lonely. But her tattoos never left.

The thought makes her chest tight, a kind of self-pity that still feels like happiness. It’s hope, or whatever, the simple realisation that you’re alive and that’s enough, it’s kinda wonderful in itself, she thinks.

She gets up, grabbing her keys off the bench, and her bag from under a chair. There’s nobody else in today, and she has enough drawings to tattoo a whole army in different shades, so she’s happily homeward-bound. A home with nobody in it.

\//\//

Delphine closes up shop soon after Alison Hendrix leaves, towing tired children behind her. The soccer mum had wanted some extravagant bouquet, something about a ‘friend of hers that needed cheering up.’ But Delphine could’ve sworn that, as she said it, Alison blushed, right from her tightly tied sandshoes to her immaculate fringe.

Whoever could that friend be? Delphine cant help musing as she pulls the glass door of her shop shut. Alison’s married, according to the ring on her left hand, but Delphine just doesn’t think her husband will be on the receiving end of the scarlet roses she timidly requested on this day of record temperatures and hardly any customers. Everyone has secrets, apparently, Delphine thinks with a smile.

She steps back from her door, still thinking about the mystery flowers and turning her keys over and over in long fingers, only to hit something,  _someone,_ who’s definitely not a usual fixture of the street.

         “Whoah, hey neighbour.” This someone says, standing up from where she had been crouched gathering, it seems, most of the contents of her half-open backpack. “I’m totally clumsy, I’m so sorry!”

Delphine doesn’t speak for a second, trying to take in every bit of the very short, dreadlocked girl in front of her who’s talking with her hands and sporting the widest grin that Delphine’s ever seen on a human face. She’s  _remarkable,_ Delphine thinks with a smile, moving to extend a hand and feeling light-headed _. It’s just the heat._ So she’s finally meeting the tattooist from next-door.

         “No, no. It is completely okay. Enchantée!” Delphine nearly stutters, the girl taking her hand and shaking it enthusiastically.

         “You’re French!” She says, still smiling. “Yeah, enchantée! I’m Cosima.”

She stumbles over the foreign word, a blush rising in her cheeks, but every movement of her body speaks joy, utter joy, and Delphine is enchanted indeed; Cosima herself is nothing short of enchanting.

They fall silent for a second, the heat suffocating in the street.

Delphine is still looking at Cosima, head titled on one side, when a thought strikes her, ridiculous, too forward-

         “This is a little strange, I’m sorry. But I moved here not that long ago and I do not really have that many friends, new city and everything,” Delphine pauses, bottom lip caught between her teeth, watching Cosima’s reaction carefully. But the tattoo-artist is nodding seriously, dark eyes wide, still standing crooked on the curb, so Delphine ploughs on, heart beating nervously in her chest. “Would you like to go for a drink? With me? This heat is ridiculous, you see and I-”

Delphine trails off with a blush but Cosima looks seconds off dancing with happiness right where she stands, dreadlocks swinging with her vigorous nod.

         “I would absolutely  _love_ to go for a drink with you. Absolutely.” Her eyes shine.

Delphine half-giggles in relief and hope; the happiness bubbling up in her throat as if Cosima herself is as effervescent as lemonade.

Delphine never wants to stop feeling this lightness, an awkward waltz on the footpath, a moment of silence, and Cosima’s voice coming forth in bursts of laughter as they walk, the heat forgotten save for where it shimmers along their skin, newly side-by-side.

\//\//


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mmmmmmm. this is shitty. I apologise. there'll be a better finale.

After their café visit, Delphine doesn’t see Cosima for a week. She has to hold herself back from visiting next-door, but the days begin cooling off and her traitor’s mind whispers doubt into her heart.

Maybe all that feeling was just a product of the feverishly hot day; a sting of desperate loneliness that manifested itself into a beautiful girl that bought her lemonade and didn’t stop grinning all afternoon? 

But then again, whenever the French woman lets herself think about that day, she can’t help smiling, a lightness entering her step that can’t possibly be a product of anything other than hope, and infatuation.

She’s familiar with this bolt of attraction though; familiar with beautiful people holding hands with her for a day, a month, maybe a year. But they all leave in the end and Delphine is always left, holding the flowers, tears running down her pale face, and a screaming hole left in her chest.

Oh yes, she’s far too familiar with this initial joy to trust it.

But today, the familiar hope is whispering that Cosima is special.

It’s been doing it for days, filling Delphine’s chest with promises it can’t keep and she’s started to listen, doe eyes wide and lips trembling in fear.

So, exactly one week after the record temperatures set her heart alight, Delphine tentatively walks the five paces it takes to reach Cosima’s tattoo parlour door and knocks on it nervously, hand reflected in the glass.

\//\//

When Cosima opens the door she lights up with a smile, cheeks pink with pleasure.

            ‘Delphine?’

            ‘Hello Co-si-ma.’

Cosima nods vigorously a couple of times as if she just  _has_ to move her head in order to process Delphine’s presence, dreadlocks swinging around her face like their dancing to some unheard rhythm.

             ‘Hi!’

Her happiness is tangible, contagious, and Delphine’s breath catches a little in her throat at how beautiful the tattooist looks this way, lit up from the inside.

Cosima stops moving then and watches Delphine smile, eyes shining behind her glasses’ lenses, before she steps back from the door and gestures inside, bangles knocking against her tattooed wrists and making strange shapes of light play up and down the doorframe.

            ‘Come in, then! I mean, if you’d like to Delphine. Unless you’re busy, and then totally ignore this invitation and return to your beautiful forest of blooms next-door. It’s cool; I don’t mean to totally hijack your afternoon y’know. But it’d be cool to have you here… I mean I’d like it.’

She stops talking, trailing off and looking faintly embarrassed at her rambling. But Delphine just bites her lip and shakes her head.

            ‘I would love to come in, if it’s no trouble.’

            ‘Oh no! No trouble at all. Totally my pleasure!’

The room is everything Delphine expected yet somehow a surprise. She walks into the centre of it, looking up and slowly turning in a circle, trying to take in the hundreds of illustrations patterning the walls.

She smiles in childlike joy, eyes restlessly trying to take the entirety of it in, not knowing where to look next. Cosima watches her quietly, slouching back in one of the tattoo chairs and humming gently into the quiet.

            ‘It’s pretty overwhelming, sorry about that.’

            ‘Oh no,’ Delphine breathes, still casting her eyes around in amazement. ‘It’s beautiful!’

Cosima bites her lip, and Delphine tears her eyes away from the room to return her stare. When she speaks her voice comes out softer than she expects, the sounds floating off into the space of the room as if she never said anything at all.

            ‘You’re beautiful too, Cosima.’

The tattooist laughs lightly into the thick air of the shop and stands up from the chair.

 _You’re not close enough_ , her mind whispers,  _you have to be closer to this glorious woman_.

And who is she to deny herself this simple pleasure; taking quiet steps across the stone floor and letting Delphine’s face swim into focus.

            ‘Not like you, I’m not.’

Delphine is beautiful, that’s definitely true, soft golden curls framing her cheeks, and those cheeks flushing under the intensity of Cosima’s gaze. They look even more magical like that, and the quiver and blink of Delphine’s eyes betray desire, even as she looks nervously towards the door.

            ‘C-cosima?’

But Cosima is purring, and her eyes are lidded.

            ‘Isn’t it time to admit what this is really about?’

And then Cosima reaches tentative fingers to trace Delphine’s jaw and pulls those soft pink lips against her own like the sweetest and most yearning promise. A promise that for once, loneliness might just be etched away more permanently, like the ink hearts hanging about the room.

So Delphine presses against the tiny tattooist and feels the heat from the day they met cover her skin.

A heat that is merciless as Cosima moves her mouth to trace a collarbone, pushing Delphine back with each caress of her tongue until the florist’s knees hit the tattoo chair and she falls backwards into its embrace. The sudden lack of contact with Cosima is frustrating,  _painfully so,_  and she reaches for the tattooist like a drowning woman, somehow needing her in order to breathe.

Cosima happily complies, leaning against Delphine’s body with all the grace of a cat, murmuring something about promises into the curve of her neck, following her words with soft trailing kisses. But to her surprise Delphine pulls away slightly, suddenly feeling like fear, and letting her gaze meet Cosima’s. But when she does, her eyes are filled with tears and Cosima half-reaches her hand to touch the frenchwoman’s cheek, moving away by infinitesimal degrees.

'Did I do something wrong?' Cosima asks, voice as vulnerable as unmarked skin. 'Delphine?' 

Delphine just shakes her head, pushed back against the chair with her skirt crumbled around her hips. But a tear escapes her lashes, and that’s enough for Cosima to leave her side entirely, running into the back of the shop and pulling out two bottles of beer, a box of tissues and some chocolate. 

'I don't know  _why_ you’re upset, Delphine,’ She says, voice muffled slightly as she digs around in the mini fridge, her tone still so desperately earnest. ‘But if this doesn’t fix it I don’t know what will!’ 

When she turns around though, Delphine’s standing, her bag retrieved and clutched in one manicured hand, and feet moving her backwards towards the door.

'I'm so sorry Cosima,' She murmurs, still speaking through tears, brow furrowed over her eyes. 'I just have to go.'

Cosima feels as though she’s hearing Delphine from a long way away, her vision blurring fast as Delphine turns on her heel and sweeps out the door.

The echo, when it shuts, is lonely, bells jingling, and it feels to Cosima as though they’re trying to cheer her up. She sits on the concrete floor, arms laden with food and beverages, and opens a beer with a grimace. 

'Oh well,' she says to the shop. 'At least that one was solved before I could get attached!' 

But her tears contradict her words, and they are unceasing, echoed by faint sobbing from the scared girl next-door, who can’t bear to fall in love again. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 


End file.
